NASA: Last Spring Was the Hottest on Record

Last spring was the hottest ever recorded, according to data from NASA. While May only tied for the hottest May ever, with that of 1998, last April was far and away the hottest on the temperature record. Additionally, the entire period of January to May this year was also the hottest in the temperature record. You're getting the idea: all kinds of records are being broken by hotter-than-ever temps. And yes, there are more of them: Climate Progress reports:

[Last] month tied May 1998 as the hottest on record in the NASA dataset. More significantly, following fast on the heels of easily the hottest April -- and hottest Jan-April -- on record, it's also the hottest Jan-May on record ... Also, the combined land-surface air and sea-surface water temperature anomaly for March-April-May was 0.73°C above the 1951-1980 mean, blowing out the old record of 0.65°C set in 2002.

The record temperatures we're seeing now are especially impressive because we've been in "the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century." It's just hard to stop the march of man-made global warming, well, other than by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that is.

While this is bad news, it offers what may be the crystal-clearest indication in years that the climate change is continuing unabated. Not that there hasn't been plenty of evidence of climate change already (Arctic ice melt, sea level rise, continued average temp rise, to name a few) -- but for the last decade, much of that evidence was obscured by the fact that 1998 was the hottest year on the temperature record, thanks in part to a powerful El Nino.

Since then, while temperatures have continued to rise gradually, no new records had been broken -- which allowed the perpetuation of the 'global cooling' myth: Since temperatures weren't as high as previous records, some claimed the Earth was cooling, not warming. This was always inaccurate, but these recent, record-breaking months have put the final nails in the idea.

We're back to breaking global heat records again, and, given our current emissions path, it looks like we're set to keep doing so for the foreseeable future.

Last spring was the hottest ever recorded, according to data from NASA. While May only tied for the hottest May ever, with that of 1998, last April was far and away the hottest on the temperature record. Additionally, the entire period of January to